This EAGER (Early-concept Grants for Exploratory Research) award supported an exploratory project that investigated a developing field of anthropological research, human-animal interaction in addition to the creation of a course on a new e-learning platform for facilitating research training in the social sciences at the university level. The project paired new distance learning software, Self-Induced Learning Infrastructure (SELIN), with materials designed to generate enthusiasm among college students for science research. Several non-profit organizations in Alaska are currently using community-based traditional knowledge as a launching point for science education. The Alaska based SELIN project team added to these efforts by investigating a new area of social science research on human-animal interactions. Relationships between dog mushers and their dogs were documented and the data were used to create a course (offered for the first time at the University of Alaska Fairbanks in Spring 2019), “Virtual Field School” that teaches qualitative social science research methods to college students while assuming no prior background in anthropology or qualitative methods.

SELIN, a new e-learning platform developed at the University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland, lends itself to a variety of observational sciences including biology, veterinary medicine, sociology, linguistics, and child development. SELIN courses are oriented around raw multimedia documentation of field sites (files are edited only for length). Students view and record notes on the material (the process of ethnographic note-taking is part of the methodological instruction and notes become tools for students to consult and cite in replying to prompts and synthesizing their observations for a final poster). They then read texts (“theory notes”) created by the instructor regarding methods and the basic ethnographic concepts undergirding them as preparation for composing response essays to prompts about the field data and concepts. Pdfs of annotated classic ethnographic texts were included as recommended readings. When students submit the first drafts of their responses, they receive automatic feedback or tips that push them to consider the thoroughness of their answers and are given the opportunity for revision. Once they submit their final answer, they receive a brief description of what is necessary for an adequate response, followed, several days later, by personal comments from the instructor and their grade. The platform allows instructors/course designers to view initial, unrevised answers, which proved useful for verifying whether the prompts were clear and appropriate and whether tips did indeed spur students to provide more complex responses.

The creation of SELIN distance courses (or courses inspired by its pedagogical model delivered on other platforms) in English will make high quality methods instruction accessible to a broader audience. During the grant period the fifteen week course was offered via the SELIN platform in 2019 to undergraduates and a version was designed, for future offerings, that adopted the same pedagogical approach and used the same materials but integrated them into the Blackboard learning management platform. The findings and data that arose from this research (the latter will be made available, unedited, to other researchers by request) about the cultural and economic factors that drive dog mushing will also be beneficial to veterinarians and those involved in resource management in the Arctic. The fact that the course relies on asynchronous pedagogy means it can deliver science to communities where there is limited access to scientists and science education and lack of reliable internet access, among them rural and Indigenous Arctic communities for whom the subject matter is of particular interest.

In addition to contributions to science education, long term ethnographic research with dog mushers in Alaska revealed the tension between animals’ resemblance to and difference from humans and how these affinities and boundaries were drawn upon as resources in interactions and community building among human participants in the sport. The findings from the research will offer insights of potential interest to those involved in practical applications such as training and coordinating activities with animal species for search and rescue, law enforcement, and service animals who assist the disabled.

Last Modified: 03/29/2020
Modified by: Patrick Plattet